The voyager in Lilliput sees, in the land of dwarfs, that greatness and dignity are but shams. To a giant our strength is weakness, our dignity comic, our stately towers doll's houses! The voyager in Brobdingnag finds on the GULLIVER FIRES HIS PISTOL (From Gulliver's Travels) The whole army of Lilliput is present upon the occasion and conceals its alarm. (The horses show less self-control.) contrary that to an observer smaller than ourselves, our boasted refinement and delicacy is coarseness, our bodies are loathsome, and a dish of food is a horror! And lastly the traveler among the Houyhnhnms realizes that a horse is physically a far cleaner and finer creature than man, who is but a type of ape, a Yahoo, the foulest of animals! It is not hard to see the relation between this book and the age in which it appeared. Addison and Steele were able, with their light geniality, to float buoyantly upon the sunlit surface of their age. Swift, a deeper nature, found the corruption below those sunlit waters. A later preacher, a Carlyle, might have tried to arouse the world to nobler standards. Swift saw no standards at which to point. His age offered him no help. The Church (in which he held a high office as Dean) was stupefied by self-satisfaction. There was no strong uplifting faith in Man or in God. Let us look at Gulliver's Travels as illustrating Swift's style. Study the following extract. The first request I made, after I had obtained my liberty, was that I might have license to see Mildendo, the metropolis; which the emperor easily granted me, but with a special charge to do no hurt either to the inhabitants or their houses. The people had notice, by proclamation, of my design to visit the town. The wall which encompassed it, is two feet and a half high, and at least eleven inches broad, so that a coach and horses may be driven very safely round it; and it is flanked with strong towers at ten feet distance., I stepped over the great western gate, and passed very gently and sidelong through the two principal streets, only in my short waistcoat, for fear of damaging the roofs and backs of the houses with the skirts of my coat. I walked with the utmost circumspection, to avoid treading on any stragglers who might remain on the street; although the orders were very strict that all people should keep in their houses, at their own peril. - Gulliver's Travels, Chap. IV. The style is cold, restrained, clear-cut, without an unnecessary word. The important points stand out by natural emphasis. Swift seems to be telling in a matter-of-fact way something that really happened. So definite is his imagination (what Carlyle would call “clearness of sight") that one feels the story must be true. His style, though matter-of-fact, is never commonplace. It gives the impression of power behind it. It is a style at white heat. Swift's Style Swift was, in his best days (1710-1740), the most dreaded writer in England. His merciless clearness of sight and compressed vigor of utterance were terrible weapons. His enemies feared his attacks, and his friends feared lest he might turn against them. He showed none of the malice of Pope. He attacked wrong because it was wrong. He was a master of irony. One example is his "Modest Proposal" for relieving distress in Ireland. It is an ironic proposition that the poorer Irish His Irony should raise their children as delicacies for the table of their English overlords. He makes this mad proposition without a smile. It says in effect: "Since you have no hearts, since you will treat these Irish as less than human, why not go the whole way!" The same is true of his ironic argument that the "abolishing of Christianity would be attended by some inconveniences." You have, he tells the men of his age, no belief in Christianity. You care nothing for the soul. But do not abolish Christianity, for it has practical conveniences. Swift is never a pleasing writer. One never forgets the grim scorn that burns under his work. Yet one finds pleasure in the compressed force of his style. The following extract from the Argument against Abolishing Christianity illustrates his irony. Having thus considered the most important objections against Christianity, and the chief advantages proposed by the abolishing thereof, I shall now, with equal deference and submission to wiser judgments as before, proceed to mention a few inconveniences that may happen, if the gospel should be repealed, which perhaps the projectors may not have sufficiently considered. And, first, I am very sensible how much the gentlemen of wit and pleasure are apt to murmur and be choked at the sight of so many draggled-tail parsons, who happen to fall in their way and offend their eyes; but, at the same time, these wise reformers do not consider what an advantage and felicity it is for great wits to be always provided with objects of scorn and contempt, in order to exercise and improve their talents, and divert their spleen from falling on each other or on themselves; especially when all this may be done without the least imaginable danger to their persons. And to urge another argument of a parallel nature: if Christianity were once abolished, how could the free-thinkers, the strong reasoners, and the men of profound learning, be able to find another subject so calculated in all points whereon to display their abilities? What wonderful productions of wit should we be deprived of from those whose genius by continual practice has been wholly turned upon raillery and invectives against religion, and who would therefore never be able to shine or distinguish themselves upon any other subject? Life As we saw at the outset, Swift's was the bitterness of a fine nature capable of tenderness, the bitterness not of a sneering Iago, but of a broken-hearted Hamlet. Swift's tenderness is seen in his Journal to Stella. His Tragic True, the blossoming was brief; yet no one who has once seen this kindlier flowering can fail to see that Swift hated less than he suffered, that he never struck at a vice of mankind without feeling the lash. No one has read the heart of Swift's tragedy. No one can doubt that it was a tragedy and a pitiable one. See his torn flesh through those rents; see the punctures round his hair, As if the chaplet-flowers had driven deep roots in to nourish there Lord, who gav'st him robe and wreath, what was this Thou gav'st for wear! QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW What explanation can one find in Swift's character for his bitterness toward life and his fellow men? What explanation in the age in which he lived? Explain his purpose in Gulliver's Travels. Give an example of his irony. Compare his style with Addison's, with Steele's. Observe the dif ferent impression made by each personality. Note instances of Swift's simplicity and clearness. What would account for Swift being one of the most dreaded men of his age? What impression of Swift's character do you get from his writings? Study his life and see whether this idea is borne out. What exception to his general sternness? Make it clear that Addison, Steele, and Pope, with all their differences have a likeness, the result of the time in which they lived. CHAPTER VI BEGINNINGS OF THE NOVEL It is hard, in the present day of fiction, to think that in the year 1711 we could not have bought a novel. We No Novels in would have found it almost impossible to explain what kind of book we were looking for. That kind of thing had not yet been thought of. 1711 By a "novel" one does not mean a story about an impossible knight who slaughtered dragons and giants and entire armies. A novel tells of things that "Novel" Defined never happened, but it tells of them in such a way as to make them a part of the things that do happen. It pictures men as we know them, and life as men live it. If it deals with old far-away times or strange planets, it still bases its picture of the unfamiliar life upon the life of men as we know it now, upon such characters and passions as we see about us. A novel must also, according to modern ideas, contain a "plot," an orderly moving of events along some one line; and the character of the people in the story must have some relation to the things that happen, must make them happen, or must result from their happening. Now, in a sense, Bunyan's Life and Death of Mr. Badman |